tempus fugit

A Modest Proposal: Tell Democratic Politicians to Focus On People’s Problems Rather Than the Con

2018-01-22

Don’s real con is that he has such an outrageous personality that everybody focuses on that instead of his really horrible policies (or lack of any rational policies at all.)

My proposal is that we focus on policy: for example, a national jobs agency that gives retraining to people who need it, and finds jobs for people who are trained already. Despite our low unemployment rate, we have people working in jobs that don’t use their real skills, jobs that don’t pay well enough to get ahead, and menial work that sucks out the soul.

A national employment agency would help some of the most alienated people in society– those who have been laid off by companies that now show trillions in profit (an estimated $2.5 trillion in cash is held by companies) and people who have been unemployed because technological advances have made their jobs obsolete (like coal miners.)

The second policy area that would be politically popular is a transportation initiative that would allow people who can’t reach their work to commute– by whatever means necessary, including car-pooling. Some of this work could be done quite cheaply. It doesn’t require building a bullet train or buying busses.

There is considerable precedent for the idea that focusing on Don the Con’s personality is not the most effective way to build long-term support. If Don leaves, do we focus on Moral Mike’s personality? That won’t work. We need to go back to first principles and talk about the policies that could improve our economy and everyone’s well-being– policies that the Republicans have ignored despite their propaganda about “Make America Great Again.”